July 16, 2018—The American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) is pleased to announce the longlists for the 2018 National Translation Awards (NTA) in Poetry and Prose! 2018 marks the twentieth year for the NTA, and the fourth year to award separate prizes in poetry and prose. The NTA, which is administered by ALTA, is the only national award for translated fiction, poetry, and literary nonfiction that includes a rigorous examination of both the source text and its relation to the finished English work.

Featuring authors writing in 13 different languages, this year’s longlists expand the prize’s dedication to literary diversity in English. The selection criteria include the quality of the finished English language book, and the quality of the translation. This year’s judges for poetry are Kareem James Abu-Zeid, Jennifer Feeley, and Sawako Nakayasu. This year’s prose judges are Esther Allen, Tess Lewis, and Jeremy Tiang.

The winning translators will receive a $2,500 cash prize each. The awards will be announced at ALTA’s annual conference, held this year at the Indiana Memorial Union at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN from October 31 – November 3, 2018. The 5-title shortlists will be announced in September. In the meantime, ALTA will highlight each book on the longlists with features written by the judges on the ALTA blog: https://literarytranslators.wordpress.com/

The 2018 NTA Longlist in Poetry (in alphabetical order by title):

The Book of Disquietby Fernando Pessoa
translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa
(New Directions)

Directions for Use
by Ana Ristović
translated from the Serbian by Steven Teref and Maja Teref
(Zephyr Press)

Hackers
by Aase Berg
translated from the Swedish by Johannes Göransson
(Black Ocean)